This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Bad blood makes Liberal-NDP coalition unlikely: Hébert

If the Conservatives win a minority in next year’s election, conditions for a joint NDP-Liberal coalition government would theoretically be more optimal than at the time of the failed 2008 coalition.

The rivalry between Thomas Mulcair's NDP and the Liberals has become a lot more intense since the New Democrats became the official Oppposition in 2011, writes Chantal Hébert. (Bruce Campion-Smith / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Many strategists for Justin Trudeau's Liberals see the NDP as a bigger threat to their party’s long-term electoral prospects than the Conservatives, writes Chantal Hébert. (Adrian Wyld / THE CANADIAN PRESS file photo)

MONTREAL — If next fall’s federal election results in a minority Conservative victory, is it a given that the Liberals and the NDP will set aside their differences to come to an arrangement to replace the winner?

Prime Minister Stephen Harper seems to think so and it is a rare opinion that he shares with scores of non-Conservative voters. But that does not necessarily make it right

The issue of a possible opposition coalition to unseat Harper could well resurface next year. Based on the year-end polls, the re-election of a minority Conservative government is a distinct possibility.

Should that happen the conditions for a joint NDP-Liberal effort to craft a viable governing alternative to the Conservatives would theoretically be more optimal than at the time of the failed 2008 coalition.

Back then the Bloc Québécois was a parliamentary force that had to be factored into the coalition calculations. But the sovereigntist party is now a shadow of its former self. As a result, there are strong odds that the main opposition parties could together add up to a majority.

Article Continued Below

Harper was handed a minority twice in the past but on each of those occasions he had gains to show for his government’s management of the country. The subtext of a Conservative minority victory next fall would read differently, with disappointed 2011 supporters turning their backs on the incumbent.

But the rivalry between the Liberals and the NDP has also become a lot more intense since they traded stations in the Commons in 2011.

Under Jack Layton, the New Democrats turned the language of interparty co-operation into a mantra. In no small part that politically creative rhetoric was born out of strategic necessity.

With their party in third place and the Conservatives in power, the biggest threat to the New Democrats was the possible coalescing of the opposition vote behind the second-place Liberals.

Layton’s talk was meant to be an antidote to strategic voting, an argument to convince NDP sympathizers that they could vote with their heart and still get the regime change they sought.

Almost four years and a leadership change later, the NDP’s power-sharing approach is ancient history. Its strategic impetus has largely been lost over the transition from third to second place in the Commons and a direct view of the promised land of power.

In the last year of this mandate, there is probably more bad blood between the NDP and the Liberals than at any other juncture in their common history.

This fall, their mutual obsession with each other has tended to blind them to other big-picture considerations with posturing and positioning regularly taking precedence over the fight against a common Conservative foe.

Think of Justin Trudeau’s opposition to Canada’s combat role in the international coalition against Islamic State extremists. It ran counter to the advice of some of the party’s brightest foreign policy minds and it was poorly articulated but it did offer the Liberal left flank some cover from the NDP.

Or think of Mulcair’s out-of-the-blue musings about a resuscitated federal gun registry. He may have hoped to score points against Trudeau but he mostly ended up bringing long-standing NDP divisions back to the surface.

Think finally of the reciprocal suspicions that attended their handling of the delicate matter of the alleged sexual misconduct of two male Liberal MPs against two of their female NDP colleagues.

If the NDP finishes a close second to the Conservatives next year, the outcome will throw the Liberal party into an existential crisis over its future and that of Trudeau’s leadership.

And if the Liberals beat the New Democrats for second place, the same will be true of the NDP and Mulcair.

Many Liberal strategists see the NDP as a bigger threat to their party’s long-term electoral prospects than the Conservatives. More than a few of their New Democrat counterparts feel the same way about the Liberals.

If the choice comes down to using the relatively short time span of a minority Parliament to go after the other’s exposed jugular or partnering up in an uneasy alliance to oust the Conservatives from government, no one should presume that the latter option will necessarily prevail.

Chantal Hébert is a national affairs writer. Her column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com